Lesson Transcript
Instructor
Heather Jenkins
Heather has a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's degree in special education. She was a public school teacher and administrator for 11 years.
Expert Contributor
Laura Pennington
Laura received her Master's degree in Pure Mathematics from Michigan State University, and her Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Grand Valley State University. She has 20 years of experience teaching collegiate mathematics at various institutions.
A diagram refers to drawings and other graphics used to present information. Explore the definition, components, and examples of diagrams to understand their purpose and how they can be used to enhance reading materials.
Table of Contents
ShowDo you like Legos? If you've ever built a Jedi ship or Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine, you've probably used a Lego kit. Inside each Lego kit is a book of instructions that shows you exactly how to turn a pile of blocks into a cool race car or wicked flying saucer.
A Lego instruction book is an example of a diagram. A diagram is a drawing, image, or sketch that is used to help the reader visualize what the author is describing in the text. There are certain components that diagrams have to help the reader understand them and the text. Let's look at an example Lego diagram about building a Lego Minifigure to explore these diagram components.
Diagrams have titles that tell what the diagram is about. In the example, the title (highlighted in yellow) is ''How to Build a Lego Minifig.'' This title lets you know that the diagram will explain what you should do to build a minifig.
A label is a word or phrase that is assigned to a specific part of a diagram to help the reader identify it. A part of a diagram is sometimes labeled by an arrow or line connecting the part of the diagram to the word being used as a label. In the example, the labels are highlighted in gray. The ''head'' is shown by a bracket connecting the picture of the head to the words about it.
Diagrams often include captions. Captions are short phrases or sentences that are found at the bottom of a diagram or picture and provide additional information about what the reader sees. They could include information about:
- Dates, locations, and important names
- Other information needed to understand the diagram
- Additional facts about the topic of the diagram
In this example, the caption (highlighted in blue) lets the reader know that this diagram shows the basic types of parts needed to build a Lego Minifigure, and that there are different choices for those parts when building your character.
Now that you know what diagrams look like, let's explore why an author would use a diagram.
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- 0:04 What Is a Diagram?
- 2:07 Diagram Purpose
- 3:29 Lesson Summary
Diagrams can be used for different reasons, such as to show part of a whole, steps of a process, and relationships. Let's take a look at each of these purposes.
1. Parts of a Whole
An author could use a diagram to show the different parts of a whole object.
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The top diagram shows the parts of a dog. It points out the parts of the body that make up the whole animal. The bottom diagram shows parts of a whole pizza. The fraction, or part, of the pizza shows how much pizza has been eaten. With that yummy pizza, it's a surprise there are any leftovers!
2. Steps of a Process
Just like the Lego Minifig diagram showed the steps to make a Minifigure, this diagram shows the process of the water cycle.
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Diagrams can show steps of a process in number order or use arrows to show how the parts of a process work together. Hmmm, maybe there's a diagram about the steps you can take to get more allowance money!
3. Relationships
Diagrams can also be used to show how things are related. A Venn diagram shows how two topics are alike and different using two overlapping circles. The similarities are listed in the middle where the circles meet, and the differences are written in the parts that don't overlap. This helps you quickly see the similarities and differences.
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Okay, now that we've looked at diagrams and what they're used for, let's take a minute or two to review. As we learned, diagrams are visuals that are used to help the reader understand the text.
They have titles, labels (which are words or phrases that are assigned to specific parts of diagrams to help the reader identify them), and captions (which are short phrases or sentences that are found at the bottom of a diagram or picture and provide additional information about what the reader sees). Diagrams are used to show parts of a whole, steps of a process, and relationships.
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Additional Activities
Real World Example/Application of a Diagram:
Reminders:
- A diagram gives a visual representation of something given in a text or oral format.
- A title in a diagram explains what the diagram is about.
- Labels in a diagram are used to identify various parts of the diagram.
- Captions of diagrams give additional information about the diagram.
Scenario:
You've just received a kit for building a tree house in your backyard. When you open the box, a booklet is right on top containing instructions for the building process. The booklet is 7 pages long, and these pages contain the following information.
- Page 1: This is a picture of the finished tree house with all parts included in the kit labeled.
- Page 2 - 5: These pages contain step by step instructions on how to build the tree house. They are text only, and do not contain any pictures.
- Page 6: This page contains pictures for each of the steps in the text instructions.
- Page 7: This page contains information about the warranty for the tree house.
Discussion Questions:
- Which of the pages contains diagrams? Explain.
- Describe possible pictures, titles, labels, and captions that would be found on each of the diagrams identified in question 1.
- Use your answers from question 2 to draw one of the diagrams you described.
Answers:
- Page 1 is a diagram, because it is a visual representation of the parts and the tree house. Page 6 is a diagram, because it gives a visual representation of the steps from the previous pages. The rest of the pages are not diagrams, because they are not visual representations.
- Answers will vary, but page 1 is a picture of the tree house as it should look once it is built, with labels for each of the parts of the tree house. It may be titled something like "Finished Tree House" or "Parts of the Tree House", and a possible caption could contain expected assembly time, special notes about particular parts, or an explanation that this is how the tree house should look once finished. The diagrams on page 6 are pictures corresponding to each step of assembly, so they would likely be titled by the step they correspond to. Their labels would likely be the parts involved in that step, and their captions could probably give extra instruction or warnings for each particular step.
- Answers will vary.
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I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. It’s like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. I feel like it’s a lifeline.
Jennifer B.
Teacher
Back
